Team Curse was a North American League of Legends team sponsored by Curse, Inc., an online game portal and network of gaming sites. The roster was first formed by LiQuiD112 in 2010, when the team was originally named Team XXX. The team first received a sponsorship from unRestricted eSports. After qualifying for MLG Raleigh in August 2011, they obtained a sponsorship with Curse, and renamed to Curse Gaming.

In February 2012, they held their first major tournament, the LoLPro.com Curse Invitational, which coincided with the launch of their League of Legends website, lolpro.com.

In January 2015, Team Curse merged with the Team Liquid organization under the latter's name, following the Curse organization having to choose between sponsoring the team and supporting their Curse Voice service due to new LCS rules.

Season 1

Team Curse attended their first event at 2011 MLG Raleigh, where they took 4th place, after losing three series. The team lost the best of three series against Counter Logic Gaming 1-2, Epik Gamer 1-2, and Team SoloMid 0-2, but obtained 40 Circuit Points from the event. This placed Team Curse in 4th in the NA Circuit Rankings behind the other three teams at the event.

Season 2

With the arrival of Season 2 came changes to the Curse roster, with DontMashMe leaving due to irreconcilable differences with the management and direction of Curse, and Doublelift leaving in order to pursue a career with Counter Logic Gaming Prime as their new AD carry. Despite the departure of some of their key players, Curse was still able to play in the National ESL Premier League Season 2, placing second behind Counter Logic Gaming.

Around mid May, long time League of Legends player and theorycrafter Thomas "SYDTKO" Oh retired from competitive League of Legends. In the same month, a three team shuffle occurred between Curse, Dignitas, and Counter Logic Gaming Prime. As Curse's jungler Crumbzz was unable to move into the gaming house due to school commitments, Curse picked up Counter Logic Gaming Prime's jungler Saintvicious, who chose to leave his old team rather than lead CLG's second team, Counter Logic Gaming Black.

On June 8th, Curse picked up Westrice as their top laner, as Pobelter was too young to move to a gaming house. Curse's first competitive matches with Westrice as their top laner were at the MLG 2012 - Spring Championship, where the newly reformed team was able to place 7th/8th. On August 26th, Curse won the 2012 MLG Pro Circuit/Summer/Championship, beating Dignitas in the best of 5 finals 3-2. However, both teams were disqualified by MLG and Riot for violating MLG's Official Pro Circuit Conduct Rules: "competitors may not intentionally Forfeit a Game or conspire to manipulate Rankings or Brackets." No prize money or circuit points were awarded to either teams.[2][3]

Pre-Season 3

Following the conclusion of Season 2, on October 19th, 2012, Curse hosted an Extra Life League of Legends charity stream marathon supporting the Seattle Children's Hospital. [4]

Team Curse would pick up gold in two minor tournaments in Solo Mid Series Week 4 and Solo Mid Series Week 5. Elementz would not play in these two tournaments, instead the winner of the Curse 1v1 tournament Rhux would tryout for the support position. On November 21st, LiQuiD112 announced on The Morning Liquid show that they would be benching Elementz in favor of Rhux. He cited that it would give them a "better opportunity" at the upcoming IPL 5 event[5].

Curse would compete in the IPL 5 tournament in Las Vegas on the 29th of November. They would take third in the group stages, suffering defeat twice at the hands of Moscow 5, but managing to win against Blackbean from Thailand. Being knocked to the losers bracket, Curse would sweep the series against Team Dynamic, and then be forced to fight against their sister team Curse EU. They would manage to eliminate Curse EU from the tournament 2-1 to advance against Taipei Assassins. The Taiwanese team would defeat them 2-0, ending their tournament run. Team Curse placed 7th-8th at the event and took home $1,750 in winnings.

Season 3

Curse started off the Spring Season of the NA LCS Spring Season strong. They didn't drop a single game, up until week 4, when they lost their first game to Dignitas. Despite that loss, and having a rough rest of the season, Curse still finished 2nd, securing their spot in the Spring Playoffs along with securing their spot in the Summer Season of the NA LCS. Despite having a roster change right before the Playoffs, Curse went on to place 4th in the NA LCS Spring Playoffs.

On the eve of the NA LCS Summer Season, Team Curse announced the huge news that they would be filling their support role by EU ex-Gambit Gaming member Edward, who was the EU LCS All Star. He would be the first player to ever in both NA and EU LCS. Despite the huge roster acquisition, Curse had a shaky Summer season, fighting hard to stay in the middle of the pack. They did end the season 13-15 in a fourth spot place going into NA LCS Summer Playoffs. They first faced off against Team Dignitas and even though winning their first game in a dominating fashion, they lost the next ones, losing 1-2, therefore having to play CLG for the 5th spot decider. Curse was unable to best them in the set losing 0-2, and were sent to relegation to play for their spot back in the Season 4 Spring Promotion.

Pre-Season 4

In October 2013, it was announced Team Curse would execute a significant roster change after a disappointing result at the end of Season 3. Support player Edward announced his return to his previous team Gambit Gaming, and the last player of the original Curse lineup, Nyjacky, was moved to the reformed Curse Gaming EU roster, now named Team LoL Pro. Cop was moved to a substitute position while also joining the LoL Pro roster. Saintvicious stepped down from the player roster to become their coach/analyst. Curse initially announced a lineup that included ex-CLG support Aphromoo playing AD carry, ex-Curse Academy mid Pobelter, ex-coach/support for To Be DeterminedZekent, and ex-Curse Academy coach/jungler IWillDominate. However, this revamped roster was quickly abandoned, as Aphromoo was kicked and Pobelter left. Curse Manager LiQuid112 commented that Cop had shown a "reignited passion" for the game, and that keeping Cop on the team felt "right." On the other hand, Pobelter expressed a strong desire to both remain in school and play professionally for Curse, and LiQuid112 determined that it would be impossible to maintain both those commitments at an adequate level. LiQuid112 later expressed regret that he had announced a roster that had not been finalized. Voyboy would be the only remaining member untouched on the roster to stay in his top lane position.

The replacements for the recently departed Aphromoo and Pobelter were indeed the return of Cop, and the addition of Quas from Gold Gaming LA as top laner. Voyboy switched positions from top to mid lane. The team's first challenge was to be the first season of the North American Challenger League (NACL), with the other bottom four teams of the LCS, as well as six challenger teams.

At the NACL, Curse competed in a group stage that took place throughout October and November 2013. Curse finished second in its group with a 20-6 record, behind fellow LCS team Coast. Cop and Quas were named All-Stars for the league during the season. In the NACL playoffs, Curse won its first series 2-0 against Curse Academy, the organization's sponsored challenger team, but lost 0-2 in the semifinals to compLexity Gaming.

Season 4

Team Curse was a decidedly middle-of-the-pack team in the Spring Split of the fourth season of the LCS, with further roster shuffles hindering their forward progress. After three weeks of LCS play, support Zekent stepped down to a coaching position, while Saintvicious returned to the starting lineup in his place. Four weeks later, challenger player Bunny FuFuu was recruited to replace him. Plagued by its roster changes, and dragged down by a 0-8 record against the top two teams, Cloud 9 and Team SoloMid, Curse finished fifth with an 11-17 record. From there, Curse was able to win its first playoff match against Dignitas 2-1, but then lost to Cloud 9 in the semifinals 0-2, and then lost to CLG 0-2 in the third place match. Curse finished fourth in the playoffs and earned a $10,000 USD prize. Despite its struggles, Curse avoided returning to relegations and earned a spot in the Summer Split.

During the brief off-season, Spring runner-up Team SoloMid shocked the League of Legends community by announcing that its longtime support Xpecial had been removed from the team following attitude disagreements. Curse quickly recruited the three-year competitive veteran to replace Bunny FuFuu, making Xpecial the fifth support to play for the team in six months.

Xpecial's contribution to the team was not quickly felt. Curse began the Summer Split at a paltry 2-6 tied for last place, and additional roster changes appeared imminent. However, led by two 3-1 super week showings, Curse climbed the rankings back to fourth place, holding a 13-15 record and a head-to-head tiebreaker against Dignitas and CLG. During each super week, a Curse player won the weekly MVP award: first Xpecial, and then Voyboy.

The top three teams of the North American Summer Playoffs earned a berth to the Season 4 World Championship, and Curse hoped to attend its first championship in team history. Curse's first match of the Summer playoffs was against CLG. Although Curse held a 3-1 record against CLG during the season, CLG had just returned from a three week "bootcamp" in Korea, during which they scrimmaged against some of the top teams in the world, and came back to North America amid heightened expectations. Curse responded to the public hype by flattening CLG 3-0 in the quarterfinals and moving on to face Cloud 9. At this point, Cloud 9 held a 10-0 record in playoffs and seemed an unstoppable juggernaut. Curse was not able to ride the positive momentum of their previous series win, and lost the semifinals 0-3. Lastly, Curse played LMQ for the final spot at the World Championship, but lost after building a 2-0 lead and holding a positive gold differential in the third game. LMQ completely shut out Curse in the fourth game, and ended Curse's championship hopes with a heartbreaker of a 3-2 series win.

Pre-Season 5

The off-season saw further significant changes to the team as Cop was released from the roster in September, before Voyboy stepped down from competitive play in November. Curse then imported Piglet and FeniX to fill their respective roles, in October and December, respectively. Finally, new LCS rules limiting professional involvement in the LCS to one instance resulted in Team Curse - which had for some time in fact been owned by LiQuiD112 but were still sponsored and named by Curse Inc. - merging with and taking the name of the Team Liquid organization in January.

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